Attention Alonso: They think Aston Martin will do better in Jeddah!

Because of the performance shown by Aston Martin in Bahrainas the second best car after red bull And with Fernando Alonso on the podium in the first race of the year, it seems clear that the main characteristics of the green car are a good rear end, excellent braking, good performance in slow corners, but it seems to lack some deficiency. of maximum speed. in straight. I thought that at the next appointment of jeddah, completely different, on a track full of straights and fast corners, the potential of the car can be reduced at the expense of an improvement of Ferrari or perhaps also of Mercedes. However, it may not be so.

Lance Stroll’s assistant and trainer, Nuno PintoAlonso’s right-hand partner at Aston Martin, in podcast remarks ‘Let’s talk about FUm’, sent a message that fills the fans of Fernando Alonso, Lance Stroll and Aston Martin with enthusiasm: He assured that the team’s simulations indicate that the performance of his car should be better at the next round in Saudi Arabia compared to Bahrain and indicated that the car’s worst performance in qualifying was due to the aerodynamic configuration chosen by the team, which prioritized the car’s race pace at the expense of single-lap performance.

“You can choose to be super competitive in qualifying, but our strategy is more to have a car that is easier to drive and very well balanced for the race. And on a circuit like Jeddah (with more straights and less degradation), clearly we need to be more aerodynamically efficient.”he declared, making it clear that by changing the car’s settings and removing it aerodynamically, the car’s performance on a track with a straighter line and less wear would be better.

“You have to study the truth of the numbers. In theory, Bahrain was not the strongest track for the team at the beginning of the championship”he pointed out.

In the hour and 9 minutes of a podcast that lasts more than 3 hours, Nuno makes sure of that “What is known is that Bahrain was not our strongest circuit at the start of the championship for the team.”

“Now we have to draw new conclusions. You have to adapt the car potential and in theory (the potential) is greater than Bahrain, taking degradation out of the equation, talking only about pure and hard competitiveness”. In other words, he announced that the team’s simulations, which in Bahrain had a good correlation with the data collected on the track, indicate that the Silverstone team should be more competitive at the next meeting in Saudi Arabia.

Points in Barcelona, ​​​​​​Budapest and Austria

“I want to go to Barcelona, ​​​​​​I want to go to Budapest and I want to go to Austria”, he continued, listing the circuits where Aston Martin is expected to perform at a very high level. Nuno emphasized the good performance his car can get on tracks with significant degradation, but he also listed a track like the Red Bull Ring for the good traction and braking shown by the AMR23, two of the great its strength.

“Last year the car was a tank (The one at the start of the course, before Aston Martin changed its concept from the Spanish GP). shit…. won’t go The car seems fat, slow. He was different from everyone else from the beginning. It has been seen that: Either we won the championship, or it was a mega ‘flop’. And this is. And this year we managed to make a very good evolution and our car is the most talked about and Aston Martin is the team that is the most talked about, and that gave us all great motivation”, added.

However, he doesn’t know what Red Bull has in his hat in Bahrain because of his superiority on the track. That is his big doubt facing Jeddah and the rest of the championship. “We have to analyze the data. Obviously in Bahrain it is a circuit with a lot of particularity and if you have problems with breakdowns, you see it more in Bahrain than in Jeddah. That is why one of the main problems for Ferrari is that. What worries me is that Red Bull is not at his best in the last 15-20 laps. But I saw a very powerful Ferrari engine. I don’t know if the Honda (Red Bull) engine is at its maximum. We will wait to see what happens.”he pointed out, also underlining the enormous opportunity that Aston Martin has to approach throughout the year by having more wind tunnel and simulation time allowed by regulation compared to Red Bull (100% for Aston Martin compared to 63% for Red Bull).

“We still have a lot of time to use. We have a broad, well-defined development program. Red Bull takes less time. But we also don’t have our own wind tunnel…”commented here.

The complete podcast with talks by Nuno Pinto